


Crying

by ceywoozle



Series: One Word Bottomjohn Prompts [73]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 10:30:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5925181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceywoozle/pseuds/ceywoozle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Greg and how they cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crying

It doesn't start right away. Whatever they had—whatever they have—is nothing whatsoever to do with love and everything to do with need. Need for warmth. For touch. For humanity. For someone, anyone, who has some understanding of what it was like. After all, Sherlock Holmes wasn't a good man. And jumping off the roof of a hospital, inducing pity and then anger as the rumours of his supposed lies spread, was not the actions of someone who was good, or great, or anything else much for that matter.

It is John who started it. This. This thing. Whatever they had. Have. He showed up at Greg's flat, the shitty one he's been staying at since his wife cheated (again). It doesn't ever occur to him to ask Greg to Baker Street. It never occurs to Greg to go there. It is an understood thing that somewhere they need to draw the line, somewhere in this world Sherlock Holmes, whoever he was, could not be allowed to come. And Baker Street was Sherlock Holmes if anything—anywhere—was.

So they made do. With a cramped single bed and a creaking, sagging mattress. Neither of them slept much, anyway. When they did it was something more akin to unconsciousness, tangled together, covered in each other's sweat and semen because neither of them could be much bothered to move after fucking themselves to exhaustion. It's not about affection. It's about filling in space and time without having to talk or think. It is affirming in a way and also despairing. An admittance that they still exist but in the meantime the world remains shit regardless and what else is one supposed to do anyway.

Not once have either of them spoken his name in the other's presence. Should someone else do so, on a case or simply overheard in a scathing tone, some stranger's titillating conversation about the latest scandal, they studiously avoid looking at one another until the moment is over and existence moves on. There is nothing for them to say. They both know what they know about the man they used to know. They both understand that whatever is happening—happened—it has nothing to do with him. There is a careful story being told to the world and neither wants to hear the doubt in the others voice when they deny it.

So it's a surprise to John, one day in late March, five months after Sherlock's death, when the nightmares of blood and vacant blue eyes have gone down to only once or twice a week (he never has them when he's with Greg and Greg hasn't commented on how often John stays there now, no longer even bothering to go home most nights) that for the first time since Sherlock's been gone— _died, say died_ —one of them breaks. It's been five months. John had thought they'd be past this. He had thought they were safe. But when he looks down, his thighs straddling Greg's hips, Greg's cock pushing into him as he lowers himself with practised care onto that soul-numbing intrusion, he sees that Greg is crying.

He doesn't stop right away. Not till he's fully seated, the aching stretch a thought-stealing point of reference for his brain, does he settle and reach a tentative hand to that suddenly wet cheek. It's a soft gesture, bordering on an affection that's never come up between them before, and it forces Greg to look up, meet John's eyes.

“I got an email,” Greg says. “There's a group. _I Believe In Sherlock Holmes._ They wanted me to come speak to them. Like some visiting professor.” He snorts and it catches on the edge of a sob. “I fucking hate him, John.”

“I know,” John says and he leans down, feels the slow pleasure of Greg slipping out of him but he ignores it, lets the feeling go as he kisses the man below him on the lips. “I hate him too.”


End file.
